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The Importance of Not Having Time

Time is the most valuable resource we own as individuals because for every goal we want to accomplish, we must inject a certain amount of time into it. We invest time to execute our next career step, to set up a new business, we need time to spend with our kids or to take a vacation.

Time has also a special character: it is usually perceived as limited and unlimited at the same time. We all agree that our personal time is limited, no one questions the fact that one day we all will inevitably die. However, since we do not know how much time we have, we deal with it as an unlimited resource.

The direct consequence of this misperception is postponement, we must not fulfil our dreams today, we can always do it later. When? Some day. Perceiving time as an endless resource makes us careless about the way we spend it. We just give it away, wastefully, knowing that tomorrow we will earn 24 brand-new hours and that next week it will be 168 new hours.

However, while on one hand we deal with time in an imprudent way, on the other hand, we complain about having no time for anything. Isn’t it ironic to want more of something which seems to be unlimited?

The reason for this conflict is that we perceive our time as being unlimited in the long-term, but in the short-term our day is strictly limited to only24 hours, which doesn’t seem to be enough to conciliate career, family and leisure. What would happen if you had more daily time? If you had a 26-hour-day, would you be able to grow your business faster, or would you spend even more time answering emails? Would you spend more time with your family, or would you stay even longer at work?

You know the answer. The importance of having limited time is that it prevents us from engaging in activities which are not important to us. The limitedness of time forces us to make decisions. It coerces us to choose some goals and to discard others, concentrating our life or career on what actually matters. If we had unlimited time we would follow each idea that crosses our minds, we would work on dozens of projects at the same time and even engage in activities which do not interest us at all.

However, if it is so great to have limited time, why are we drowning in stress? Now we come back to the dual character of time. We cannot effectively deal with time while we perceive it as an endless resource. It is like tap water, we use it without quantifying our expenses and only think back about how much we spent when we get the bill. Therefore time management is, in the first place, not about becoming more effective, it is about changing our perception of time. In the same way that people must be educated about how much tap water is wasted every day, we have to educate ourselves that time is not a renewable resource.

How? This is just the first of a series of articles on this subject, follow us on your favorite social media or leave your email and we will notice you about the next articles.

Not having time is not a problem, it is a chance. And as every chance, it is only worth when you take it.

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"Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you're just sitting still?" --J. Paul Getty

About the Author:

Vanessa del Valle Magalhães is the woman behind Insanity Corp, a passionate non-conformist with a background in Engineering and Psychology. She has more than 10 years experience working with companies of different profiles, varying from small
business to multinational corporations in Brazil and Germany.